American Dynamism Film Series Spotlights Startups in Defense, Nuclear Power, and Minerals

American Dynamism Film Series Spotlights Startups in Defense, Nuclear Power, and Minerals The American Dynamism Film Series highlights three companies targeting foundational infrastructure: Ulysses in maritime technology, Radiant in portable nuclear power, and Mariana Minerals in autonomous extraction and refining. Will O’Brien of Ulysses asserts future conflicts will center on oceans, requiring government defense entities to serve as anchor customers that accelerate deep tech development much like the Cold War space race. Doug Bernauer of Radiant outlines plans to mass-produce trailer-mounted megawatt nuclear reactors at a rate of one per week from an 80-acre Tennessee facility for off-grid deployment within 48 hours. Turner Caldwell of Mariana Minerals details using reinforcement learning to automate decisions across mining and refining, aiming to overcome labor bottlenecks and legacy manual tracking methods. Maritime Tech and Defense as an Anchor Customer Will O’Brien of Ulysses frames the current era as defined by maritime conflict rather than land warfare, predicting that future defense engagements will occur over oceans. Drawing comparisons to the Cold War space race, O'Brien notes that massive early investment pulled technological timelines forward by decades, laying the foundation for modern commercial aerospace. He positions defense departments as critical anchor customers capable of funding early-stage research and development to advance maritime technologies up the readiness scale. Assembly-Line Nuclear Reactors for Off-Grid Power Doug Bernauer of Radiant contrasts traditional nuclear mega-projects—which take five to fifteen years to dig and build—with factory-manufactured nuclear products. Radiant is targeting the production of one megawatt-scale reactor per week from a recently acquired 80-acre facility in Tennessee. Built as mobile units on trailers, these reactors are designed to be driven or flown to off-grid locations and activated within 48 hours, treating electricity generation as an essential, plug-and-play utility. Autonomous Systems Across Mining and Refining Turner Caldwell of Mariana Minerals emphasizes unifying the entire supply chain from extraction through refining to eliminate operational inefficiencies. Because geological feedstocks vary continuously, the company applies reinforcement learning to automate adjustments in flow rates, temperatures, residence times, and chemical additions without requiring human intervention. Caldwell notes that mineral operations face severe labor constraints and often rely on pen, paper, and ad-hoc spreadsheets, which software and automation seek to modernize.

a16z发布美国活力系列短片：聚焦深海防务、便携核能与矿产自主化三家企业 该系列短片重点展示了三家改变美国建设、能源与防务模式的公司，分别涵盖由政府驱动的深远海技术研发、产线化移动式核反应堆制造，以及利用强化学习优化矿业与精炼全流程的自主化技术。 Ulysses认为本世纪将被海洋定义，下一场战争将围绕海洋展开，政府将扮演深科技研发的关键主要客户以加速技术落地。 Radiant正在研发可置于拖车上的兆瓦级离网核反应堆产品，目标在其田纳西工厂实现每周生产一台，运抵后48小时内即可开机供电。 Mariana Minerals押注自主化全产业链，通过强化学习算法替代人工决策来应对地质原料复杂多变的精炼与开采环节。 Ulysses：深海防务与政府牵引的技术跃升 Ulysses创始人Will O’Brien指出，过去的战争发生在丛林与沙漠，而本世纪的竞争将围绕海洋展开。如同冷战时期的太空竞赛将技术时间线提前了数十年，政府作为核心首发客户正资助早期研发，推动海洋相关深科技提升技术成熟度，为新兴技术公司奠定发展基础。 Radiant：流水线生产的移动式离网核反应堆 Radiant创始人Doug Bernauer表示，传统核电站建造通常需要数年且属于现场大型工程，而他们正将核反应堆转型为流水线产品。公司在田纳西州设立了80英亩的基地，目标为每周下线一台车载兆瓦级反应堆，可直接空运或陆运至离网需求地点，并在48小时内启动供电。 Mariana Minerals：强化学习重塑采矿与精炼流程 Mariana Minerals聚焦从开采到精炼的完整产业链。针对传统矿场高度依赖纸笔和电子表格、缺乏成熟决策人员的现状，公司利用强化学习等自主技术替代人工闭环，实时微调复杂精炼回路中的温度、流速和化学添加剂用量，以解决原料非均质化带来的生产效率低下问题。

[America](https://www.a16z.news/t/america) | [Tech](https://www.a16z.news/t/technology) | [Opinion](https://www.a16z.news/t/opinion) | [Culture](https://www.a16z.news/t/culture) | [Charts](https://www.a16z.news/t/charts) *Today we’re pleased to share the American Dynamism Film Series: a spotlight on three companies changing how we build, power and defend America.* “We have some periods in time that are defined by land, and this century we’re moving into a century that is defined by the sea. The last wars were fought in jungles and deserts. The next wars will be fought over oceans. And I think this is going to position DoW as one of these anchor customers for companies like the three of ours, to fund early-stage R&D, to get these technologies pulled up the technology readiness scale. “With the Cold War, we had the space race, and we saw this insane investment as a percentage of GDP into the space race. It literally pulled forward the technology timelines 50 years. We did in less than 10 years what people thought we’d do by the turn of the century. ... When you have that pull forward of technology, then therefore you get that you had to have NASA to have SpaceX, right? ... And I think this is important, because government is typically an anchor customer to pull forwards in these deep technologies. I think we’re seeing a transition in this century.” — [Will O’Brien, Ulysses](https://www.blackflag.vc/episode/the-ocean-is-the-new-space?utm_source=chatgpt.com#transcript) “Nuclear reactors as products have never been seen before. They’re always usually these giant mega projects where you dig a huge hole in the ground and it takes five to 10 years, or up to 15 for the slower, bad projects out there. Ours, we’re targeting one per week coming off of a production line from our Tennessee facility, an 80-acre site we just signed for in October, not even a year ago. Our product is for off the grid — megawatt reactor on a trailer. We build it in our factory, we drive it or fly it to where the customer wants it to go, and then turn it on within 48 hours. ... Electric power is civilization. If you go and there are sockets, and you pop something into them and you just get power, that’s very well developed — that’s civilization, using electricity to do what you could otherwise only do with human muscle or animal muscle.” —[Doug Bernauer, Radiant](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1n5xlfRLw3c&ra=m) Read more: [SMR (So Many Reactors) | Tori Shivanandan](https://x.com/torishiv/status/2084318243918123491) “We focus on the full chain from mining all the way through refining. ... That handoff in the middle leads to a lot of actual market inefficiencies. We’re making a big bet on autonomy, fundamentally. ... We use reinforcement learning to actually remove humans from the loop in determining how refineries operate. When you have a highly variable feedstock — because the earth is heterogeneous — you need to constantly be tuning the temperatures, the flow rates, the chemical addition rates, the residence times of a highly complex refining circuit. The same is true on the mining side of things — we’re making thousands of decisions a day, and when you don’t have the labor pool of folks who are able to make the right thousand decisions, that can cascade into low productivity, low availability of equipment, and low utilization of equipment. What sets the rate of software and technology penetration into these plants and mines, ultimately, is the operating teams — what tech stack they’re comfortable with. For the most part, that’s pen and paper and maybe 150 spreadsheets scattered around an operation.” — [Turner Caldwell, Mariana Minerals](https://a16z.com/podcast/energy-minerals-and-the-physical-stack-behind-ai/) Read more: [Investing in Mariana Minerals | Erin Price-Wright and Ryan McEntush](https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-mariana-minerals/) *This newsletter is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. Furthermore, this content is not investment advice, nor is it intended for use by any investors or prospective investors in any a16z funds. This newsletter may link to other websites or contain other information obtained from third-party sources - a16z has not independently verified nor makes any representations about the current or enduring accuracy of such information. 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